Then my body jolted. A vision bloomed before my eyes. Different from the dreams I’d been having of Alex but no less jarring.
Faryn? Can you hear me?
Could it really be? Ren? I thought back. We hadn’t even been apart that long, but after hearing his voice and sensing his presence, I suddenly missed him so much that my chest ached.
Ren sighed in relief. Oh, thank the gods. I finally managed to reach you.
How are we even able to communicate right now? I thought our connection was supposed to end after … you know … Alex became the Heaven Breaker.
There was that moment during the Duels, Ren reminded me. I thought maybe we could connect again after that, but I haven’t been able to reach you. The Dragon Kings cut off most of our communication with the outside world.
Then how are you communicating with me right now?
There’s this spot in one of the toilets that another dragon told me about, and— Wait, that’s not the point. Faryn, I think I made a huge mistake. Coming here to the dragon palace, I mean.
What happened? Didn’t you say the Dragon Kings would train you?
Yes—and they have.
In just three days? I thought, perplexed.
Time passes much differently at the dragon palace. I’ve learned so much, Faryn. More than I ever learned at crossbow lessons with Mr. Fan. Even though I couldn’t see Ren, I could hear the excitement in his voice. But it’s come … at a price. The Dragon Kings want to recruit me into their army against the warriors.
Recruit you?
A long pause. Not recruit. More like … use. They want to use me as a tool for war.
I shuddered. Those words sounded all too familiar. An unwelcome memory surfaced—Xi Wangmu during the Lunar New Year, telling Alex and me that because we were half–Jade Society warrior and had the blood of Turkish and Greek warriors in us, we’d been “engineered” to become stronger.
You’ve gotta get out of there, Ren, I urged. I don’t care what fancy new tricks the Dragon Kings have been teaching you. You can’t let them use you like that.
Ren heaved an exasperated sigh. You think I don’t know that? I’ve been trying to escape the palace, but I can’t find a way out. They’ve got all us dragons locked up at night, guards surrounding all the exits, and I even have to be escorted to the bathroom. Do you know how humiliating it is to be escorted to the bath—?
Ren’s voice cut off in my head, as suddenly as though a switch had been flipped.
Ren? Are you still there? Are you okay?
They found me. His voice returned, full of panic and fear. I gotta go. I’ll try to reach out again—soon.
Tell me where the palace is! I’ll come find you.
No. Whatever you do, don’t come. This is no place for a human warrior.
But—
The connection shut off. I awoke with a gasp. It took me a moment to gather my surroundings. I was in the chariot, under an early-evening sky, the sun setting over the horizon. Ashley was curled up asleep beside me, and Jordan had taken her place as the chariot driver.
I tried reaching out to Ren with my mind again but heard nothing. The silence in my head was deafening.
Where was Ren? Would he be okay? I hoped against hope that the Dragon Kings hadn’t found and punished him—and that he’d be able to escape. I had to trust that he would. After all, this was Ren we were talking about. He’d been trained in martial arts from a young age.
Besides, it wasn’t like I could drop my current mission and go help Ren. I didn’t even know how to find the Dragon Kings’ palace.
I had to continue on the quest and trust that Ren would be strong and resourceful enough to make it out on his own.
“How long was I asleep?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the wind.
“Twelve hours,” Jordan replied. “Must’ve been having some dream!”
I couldn’t believe I’d slept for twelve hours. That meant five days and five nights had passed since we’d left the New Order. We should definitely be close to Diyu by now. My compass would be able to—
My hands were empty. I almost panicked, but then my gaze dropped down, and I saw that Ashley held my compass in her limp hand. I snatched it up, and it began to shudder and grow warm in my grip.
“Jordan—go down. We’re almost there,” I called out.
Our chariot hovered above the skyline of a red-pink dusk. From a distance, I recognized the Independence Hall and Museum of Art. There was no mistaking it. We were in Philadelphia.
As the chariot lowered, the buildings of Philadelphia’s Chinatown came into sight, right over a great green-and-red archway. Night had fallen. The lantern-lit streets teemed with adults and children, the air filled with laughter and chatter.
“The entrance to Diyu must be somewhere around here,” I shouted, staring at the compass in my hand. The arrow spun again, pointing off toward a row of shops on our right. “Keep your eyes peeled.” So close. I was so close to my ancestors—and the memory-restoring elixir.
“What am I looking for?” Jordan yelled back.
Ashley stirred and sat up, blinking at me groggily. “Probably a dirty, run-down, evil-looking building. Teeming with major demon vibes.”
The chariot drifted closer to the ground. We hovered above a black building with an all-too-familiar logo on it. The compass burned so hot in my palm, I almost dropped it.
“Found it! Panda Express,” Jordan reported proudly.
“You think the entrance to Diyu is in a Panda Express?” Ashley raised her eyebrows.
I examined the compass. I held it up so everyone could see that it was pointing right at the restaurant building. “Hold on. You might be on to something.”
“I hope this is the place,” Jordan said wistfully, patting his stomach. “I’m hungry, too. We need some real food.”
“Yeah, so why would we come to Panda Express?” I grumbled.
Jordan urged the stone lions down toward a landing on the street in front of the Panda Express, narrowly dodging oblivious pedestrians who were ambling on the street. I got out of the chariot and jabbed the remote to turn it back into a yuán. Then I stuffed the compass into my pocket, staring up at the tall, ugly, pagoda-shaped building.
“Man, I knew there was something awful about this restaurant chain,” Ashley said as she joined me in front of the entrance. “And I’m not just talking about the orange chicken.”
“I like the orange chicken,” Jordan muttered.
I took a deep breath, as if that would somehow be enough to prepare me to enter Diyu. Then I pulled open the door and was instantly engulfed in a scented wave of fried, greasy, Americanized Chinese food. Yep. Made sense that the demons wanted an entrance to their world here.
Luckily, there was no one else in line. “Can I take your order?” the young cashier asked. His smile was strained, the mark of working in the fast-food industry for too long.
We were supposed to tell the first person we saw that Sun Wukong had sent us. I guess this poor college kid would have to do.
“We were sent by Sun Wukong, the Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, to journey into Diyu and retrieve the Ruyi Jingu Bang,” I announced with as much authority as I could muster. A blond family eating at the nearest table looked up at me, startled. “Oh, and also I’d like to order the beef and broccoli.”